Mice have overrun an historic York house this Christmas.
But these little guys don’t stick to holes in the skirting boards. They ski down the banisters, make snow angels in the bread flour and even go on hot air balloon rides!
A Townmouse At Christmas has seen several hundred mice move into Fairfax House, the glorious Georgian mansion on Castlegate.
Each room in the house is beautifully decorated for an 18th century Christmas as Lord and Lady Fairfax would have experienced it. You start with the Christmas breakfast, featuring an enormous pie and wheel of cheese, and finish with the Twelfth Night Celebrations.
And everywhere you go, you’ll find the mice creating havoc.
Started last year, A Townmouse At Christmas is back by popular demand – but with double the rodents and double the fun.
Exhibition details
- A Townmouse At Christmas is at Fairfax House, Castlegate, York until 7 January
- Open daily 10.30am-4.30pm, last entry 4pm
- Children 16 and under are free
- Adults £9, over 65s £8
- Full details on the Fairfax House website
All the fabulously detailed costumes were created by a team of just four volunteers.
“As you go through, you learn about the 12 days of Christmas, which was a Georgian tradition,” Fairfax House curator Sarah Burnage told YorkMix.
“But the house is inhabited by hundreds and hundreds of little mice. Some of them are mice in a natural state – so they’re naked – and others are wearing amazing Georgian costumes, which our volunteers have made.
“And they’re doing lots of kind of quirky, naughty, cheeky things.
“It’s an opportunity for visitors old and young to come and learn about the Georgian Christmas but also to do a mouse count and win a prize if you’re the lucky person to get the right number of mice.”
Things escalate as you move through the house, Sarah said. “The mice increasingly do cheekier and cheekier things as you go around.”
So in one of the bedrooms you’ll find… a mouse burlesque show!
